


blow a kiss ; fire a gun

by daredoll



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, and what a coincidence they get paired together ??, clint as the man who lives to break the rules, laura as the agent who does everything by the book, laura's the best in her class but clint's the best of every class, rivals to lovers trope uh huh, shield agent laura au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-20 10:18:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14258838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daredoll/pseuds/daredoll
Summary: First day on the job and she gets handed a train wreck; you could say that Laura Mitchell’s hard work hasn’t exactly paid off in the way she expected it to. Still, she’s read the SHIELD handbook at least eight times by now so she’s sure she can more than handle some upstart carnie with a bow kink who somehow managed to beat her training score without even going through the academy.Spoiler Alert: she’s wrong.





	1. un.

> “Hawkeye, do you read me? Hawkeye! Hawkeye, I repeat, do you read me? Answer me, God damn it!” And, of course, the only response she receives is radio silence. She should be used to it by now; it’s not like this is the first time he’s blatantly disregarded their training and orders and simply taken out his comm link half way through a mission. Hell, at this point she can’t decide if he does it because he hates her voice buzzing in his ear or simply wants to piss her off. Lately, she’s been leaning toward the second one. “I’m going to fucking murder you if we somehow manage to live through this.”

First day on the job and she gets handed a train wreck; you could say that Laura Mitchell’s hard work hasn’t exactly paid off in the way she expected it to. Still, she’s read the SHIELD handbook at least eight times by now so she’s sure she can more than handle some upstart carnie with a bow kink who somehow managed to beat her training score without even going through the academy. _Spoiler Alert: she’s wrong._

“Agent Mitchell, this is Agent Barton, your new partner,” Phil, no Agent Coulson, after all he’s her handler now and not just her dad’s drinking buddy, introduces with a motion to the blonde young man standing next to him with his thumbs hooked through his belt loops. Laura studies him curiously as she offers him a handshake, catching the way his gaze is wary despite the easy smirk etched into his features, the way his posture portrays a certain brand of manufactured ease, even how his jaw clenches ever so slightly at the formality of everything.

“I look forward to working with you, Agent Barton,” she says, all perfectly rehearsed maturity and grace. He cracks a grin that’s half-depreciating and half amused and returns her grip with fingers already roughened from experience she doesn’t have.

“Same to you, Ma’am,” he replies, and the way he says ma’am already has her bristling.

> Her movements are smooth, cat-like almost, as she stalks her way to a better vantage point on the rooftop, but her brain is whirring with barely contained irritation, and, dare she admit it, fear? This is far from her first mission, but to this day she feels like she’s simply walking on eggshells, always waiting for the other shoe to fall. She and her partner, she and Clint, well, they don’t get along. He’s extremely reckless where she’s extremely conservative, and their shouting matches before, during, and after missions are quickly becoming their fellow agents’ favorite joke fodder. Well, actually, to be more precise she’s usually the only one actually shouting and he’s the one smirking and occasionally rolling his eyes as if she’s just overreacting, at least unless she brings up a topic that she knows he’s touchy about. Then he’s _all about_ the shouting. Somehow they always get through their missions successfully, though, even with no love lost between the two of them, and so they’ve yet to be reassigned despite their obvious compatibility issues. One day, though, Laura’s sure it’s going to get someone killed.

“Hey, Laura!” It’s a constant chorus whenever she walks through any hallway occupied by the veteran agents or the offices of the higher ups, and she answers all of them with good-girl smiles and sweet greetings of her own, mostly because she knows it’s one of her few chances to make Clint as annoyed as he makes her when they only offer him hard glances at best.

“Why do they like you so much?” he asks finally one day while they’re sharing lunch during a mission and posing as siblings.

“Because I’m a joy to be around, obviously,” she answers simply as she spears another cherry tomato from her salad on her fork. He scoffs at that and leans farther back into his chair opposite her.

“Maybe if you could get that stick out of your ass for once that could be true,” is his only reply, and she glares at him. Even when she’s trying to rile him up he beats her at it. _What an ass_. She continues to give him the silent treatment for a few more minutes, but in all honesty there’s nothing she hates more than idle silence.

“My dad’s an agent so I grew up around most of them,” she supplies with a shrug. “A lot of them don’t have kids, you know what with the messy business we’re in and all, so I guess they see me and my siblings as the closest thing they’ll have to that.”

“Knew it wasn’t your dazzling personality.” Clint’s smile is less satisfied than she expected after that comment and she frowns slightly. Barton not being his usually cocky self is almost disarming. “Didn’t know you had siblings,” he comments, but she can’t read his face beyond the way his voice is an octave lower.

“Yeah, there’s four of us in all. Two older brothers and an older sister, I’m the baby.” She almost laughs at the thought of her partner ever meeting them after all the shit she’s talked about him. It wouldn’t be pretty. “We’re pretty close. They worry about me, I think. What about you?”

He licks his lips, that mask of his he so rarely wears slipping into place, and she can’t really blame him for it despite wanting to. This job they have, well, you need to have secrets to keep those secrets safe. Her sharing is probably what’s going to end up getting her killed, and it’s just another reason she almost hates her partner. He’s more prepared for this than she is. He knows how to detach, how to do the job and still somehow keep his soul. “A brother,” he does admit, eyes darker now, troubled even. “It’s complicated.” She nods, and the conversation lulls again but at least this time it isn’t full of contempt.

> Eyes shift left to right, left to right even as she herself stays perfectly concealed. There’s no sign of Clint anywhere and she’s worried. _Really worried._ What if this time he isn’t answering simply because he can’t? What if he’s hurt? But then there he is, laughing with some beautiful girl and chatting it up with someone who definitely is not his target, and she’s going to fucking kill him. Binoculars raise and she can see clear as day that his comm’s out, and before she’s really thinking she’s scaling rooftop after rooftop at full sprint until she’s at a fire escape. One hand on the rail and one on the gun holstered on her thigh, she makes her descent swiftly and with about as much caution as her partner seems to put in everything he does. She isn’t Clint, though, and reckless doesn’t look nearly as good on her as it does on him, and it works even less.

This mission they’re newlyweds and Laura’s sure her fellow agents are just yucking it up. Antagonism works for siblings, but couples are supposed to actually _like_ each other. Somehow, though, pretending to love him is much easier than she expected. All through the night they’re like magnets, drawn to each other, and when his arm curls around her waist the way she molds herself into his side is hardly acting. Even when his hand travels up to rest on her upper thigh during dinner the smirk she shoots him is far less carefully honed and much too naturally pleased. She pays him back afterwards, when they’re slow-dancing to the event’s live band. Her breath is hot on his neck as her lips ghost up to his ear. “Enjoying yourself, Mr. Cross?” she purrs.

“Fuck,” he mutters and she’s laughing lightly until his hand sinks lower from her waist to just barely graze her ass. Thankfully the song ends soon after and the two are clapping along with everyone else, but their attention is far more focused on each other as they slip off the dance floor. Their mission can wait another night and after all aren’t newly-married couples supposed to be unable to keep their hands off each other? By the time they’re out of the ballroom and into the hotel elevator his tie’s been discarded in the hallway and the straps of Laura’s dress are halfway down her arms.

“Someone’s awfully handsy,” she murmurs in between the open mouthed kisses she’s been planting on his newly-exposed collar bone. Of course, her own hands are making short work of the buttons of his dress shirt themselves as his bury into her hair.

“You’re the one who was giving me bedroom eyes all night, ma’am.” His voice is tight, and she stops her exploration of his chest just long enough for her own retort to be swallowed by his lips on hers again. The kiss is hard and bruising and so full of need that she didn’t even know she harbored that she barely notices his fingers unzipping the back of her dress.

“I’m not fucking you in an elevator,” she tells him as she finds herself gasping for air, but then her gown is on the floor and her back is pressed against the wall with his callused hands cupping her breasts and she can’t find a protest anywhere within her. His mouth breaks away from hers to dip down to her neck and she doesn’t even care about how much of a pain it will be tomorrow to cover up the hickies he’s giving her because the pleasure now is so worth it. He lifts her up to rest up on the elevator’s hand rail and she eagerly wraps her legs around him. Her fingers tangle into the hair at the base of his neck and she’s pulling him closer, closer, until her hips are bucking against his for more friction. “I might fuck you in an elevator,” she amends, following an especially loud whimper escaping her lips.

“That’s what I thought.”

 

* * *

 

She should see them coming. In fact, she usually would see them coming if she was acting like herself, but Clint ignoring her always throws her off her game. She isn’t thinking about the mission or scanning for enemy targets; she’s boiling up inside over the fact that even after everything they’ve been through he still treats her like an over-bearing bitch. Maybe she is but when she’s around him he makes her think there’s more to her than that. Maybe she’s mad because she’s wrong. Maybe she’s mad because obviously he doesn’t see that too. Mostly she’s mad because he still doesn’t fucking trust her enough to keep her in the loop and she’s sick of his “I can do everything myself and I’ll only talk to you when I’m in deep shit” routine.

It’s almost too late when she does see them, but there’s a split second decision to make and she makes it. The sniper’s trained on her partner and she’s jumping even as she knows there’s probably a backup, too. Laura pounces on the gunman just as he’s about to shoot. She rolls across the gravel with him still in her grip, but there’s too much momentum in it so they’re falling off the roof and there’s nothing she can do to stop it. The second sniper’s first shot hits her straight in the left shoulder and she hopes it’s off target enough not to kill her too quickly. Luckily the second’s taken out before he can take another shot and she almost laughs as she falls because she wonders how Clint feels having to cover her back without warning for once.

Laura slams into the nearest rooftop with enough force to at least break two of her ribs, but she somehow finds the strength to push her sniper over the side and to his death, either by impact or her partner’s pistol. Suddenly there’s crackling in her ear and a harried voice echoing through her skull. “Princess? Princess? What is your location? Do you read me?” It sounds like he’s running and Laura’s starting to feel that deep-seeded chill in her bones that she’s always been warned about.

“I’m not answering you until you use my real codename,” she teases, her voice light and almost giddy. Is this what it feels like to die? It’s better than she expected.

“Fuck,” he mutters under his breath but she can still hear it. “Wildcat, what is your location? What is your condition? Are you okay?” She finds a little too much joy in his concern for her and she can’t help but laugh with all the endorphin rushing through her system.

“I’m on a roof,” she replies, but her body aches too much to get up and see more. “There’s a billboard for some restaurant right above me.” At his question on her condition she looks down and is amazed at how much blood is staining her front. She places a hand over her wound to staunch some of the bleeding but even that seems like a lot of effort. “I’m hit. There’s a lot of blood, Clint.” This admission is sobering, and her voice wavers as she breaks procedure to say his real name. “I don’t—I don’t think I’m gonna make it out of this one.”

“Bullshit,” he tells her, and she can hear his footfalls on the ground beneath him. He must be sprinting now. “I’m almost there, okay? I’m almost there and you’re going to be fine. You hear me? You hold on, and I’ll be there.”

“Just couldn’t keep your damn comm on, could you?” Her tone’s light, not angry like she had been in the beginning. “Never could, really.” She’s tired and it’s far too much work to keep her eyes open even as he’s calling her name.


	2. deux.

“So, who’s the love interest of the week this time?” The airport terminal is packed for the redeye flight their covers are taking, but the two of them are sprawled across at least three seats each as they try to get in some last minute comfort before the mission that’s sure to be hell.  Laura’s just gotten over a bad breakup so she really shouldn’t be picking another fight, but when has that ever stopped her before?

“Is that jealousy I hear?” he replies after a big yawn. Her responding eye roll is maybe a little too much, especially since his gaze is still locked on their gate and not her.

“Jealous that I haven’t fucked my way through our entire department or jealous that I’m not your girl of the week?” Even she knows that’s an exaggeration because it’s not like Clint promises his hook ups anything more than what he gives them, and the only SHIELD screaming matches he partakes in are still with her. It’s probably the reason she finds it the most annoying. She _ wants  _ him to be an asshole.

“Both, probably.” One side of his mouth lifts higher than the other and he finally looks over at her just in time to catch her scoff. If anything it just makes him look more smug.

“That’s funny. Tell me, what  _ are _ you going to do once you’ve ran out of girls who could kick your ass to screw?” Also an exaggeration since her partner’s actually probably one of the best agents SHIELD has ever seen, but it’s too early for her to really care.

“Who even says screw anymore?” Clint laughs this time, big and genuine and she’s just a little embarrassed. “And I think we both know I don’t  _ just _ fuck girls who could kick my ass.” The suggestion in his voice is so obvious that the pointed look he gives her is overkill.

She’s conflicted. On the one hand they’ve been doing so well not mentioning their night together, although sometimes she does find herself zoning out with her mouth dry only to be jolted back down to earth by her partner with a knowing smirk on his face that makes her blush, but there’s no way she can let him get away with that comment.  _ She’s far too proud for that _ . “Please, I had the best score in my year at the academy. There’s no question that I could kick your ass.”

“We both know I beat your score, Laura,” he states, voice sickeningly sweet and she just glares at him until he’s practically crying he’s laughing so hard.

> “Laura!” a voice screams in her ear, and she’s half-aware of hands pressing into that place between her chest and shoulder where she vaguely remembers being shot. Her eyes flutter open lazily, and a frown settles into the corners of her mouth.
> 
> “Okay,  _ Clit Barton _ , turn it down a notch. Jesus Christ,” she mutters, pain starting to lace her words and her lips with a grimace. Yeah, she definitely had been shot.
> 
> “I fucking told you to hang on!” His face is blurry in her gaze, but he looks scared as hell, which might be understandable considering all the blood covering his hands that she’s pretty sure is hers. Still, even if these are her last minutes she isn’t letting him off the hook for the mist in his eyes.
> 
> “Are you  _ crying _ ? Don’t be such a baby, Hawkeye.” She goes to slap his arm but underestimates how weak this much blood loss makes her and barely raises a hand. “Medivac’s on the way, right?”
> 
> “Shut the hell up.” He cracks a half-smile, and she would mimic it if she wasn’t in so much damn pain. “Yeah, it’ll be here soon. Promise. Like those old fogies are gonna let their favorite suck-up kick the bucket.”
> 
> “Make me,” she says through gritted teeth and hopes that the medivac will be enough.
> 
> “I will,” and there’s the sound of propellers above her that almost drowns out his next words. “You might moan a little though.”
> 
> “That better be a promise.”

“You look like shit,” she comments, cup of coffee barely glancing across her lips as she takes a sip. This mission is longer than usual, and maybe it’s the fact that they’ve been playing nice for nearly a month that has her words come out especially cool. This married shtick is getting harder to keep up with each new job, especially since they’ve made a silent agreement not to mention the occurrences of the first one for the most part. There really is nothing quite like a one-night stand with your co-worker to fuck up any semblance of amity growing between the two of you.

“Go to hell,” is his tart reply as he downs the rest of his mug and walks over to their suite’s kitchenette to get a refill. Still, his tone is more tired than biting, and not just from the lack of sleep he’s been getting on the sofa rather than the bed. Losers can’t be choosers, though, can they? The two-headed coin in her pocket certainly proves that.

He’s stressed, she can tell, but not just because of the mission.  _ Oh, no _ , he never lets the mission get to him and that’s one of the reasons she hates his guts. It takes a special kind of asshole to leave their partner out to dry like she’s convinced herself he does. “Seriously, what’s up with you? You only make coffee at midnight when something really bad’s happened.”

“I make coffee whenever I fucking want to,” he argues, but they both know he’s a shitty liar. He raises a hand to fist it in his hair and releases a drawn-out sigh. She hasn’t seen him this uncomfortable since the day she met him, but this time is even worse. Her fellow agent barely holds onto his mock-confidence by a thread, and the tension in his shoulders is palpable. “What’s it like,” he starts, for once careful with his words as she can see him trying to find the best way to string them together, “knowing your siblings are safe? What’s it like to know your family loves you?”

Her eyes widen slightly, her back immediately straightening, and her brows furrow as she’s caught between surprise and pity. They don’t talk about this, about things that really matter. They pick at each other and make idle chit chat only if they’re feeling extremely generous. Laura fiddles with her mug, tracing her finger around its rim. “It’s nice, I guess, but I don’t know what to compare it to, really.” Her happy childhood always has her on the defense, always makes her feel like she has to prove that she can be hard, too, but there’s something in his question that lets her soften. “They make me happy, help me take the edge off. They’re like a security blanket, if that makes sense?”

Clint nods slowly, and she knows he’s trying to picture it although it’s just out of his reach. She wants to ask what fucked him up so badly that even the idea of someone being there for him is impossible to imagine, but she bites her tongue. “My brother, he’s… he’s all I got, ya know? But I hadn’t heard from him in  _ years _ , Laura, and now, now he’s back…” Clint trails off, and drags the hand previously in his hair down his face. It’s the first time she’s ever seen him look so defeated.

“You don’t have to tell me,” she says, but there’s more fear in her voice than concern. She doesn’t want to know about his brother, about what keeps Clint Barton up at night. It’s too much responsibility, knowing his secrets. Laura doesn’t want to acknowledge there’s more to him when the contempt they hold for each other is the only thing keeping her from falling over the edge. “You need to sleep, Clint. You’re exhausted.”

She peeks over that ledge and sees what waits for her. There are plenty of footholds to get back up she decides, and it’s really only half a lie. His hand is rough, always rough, when it’s in her grasp, and each time hers grows rougher, too. Her hold is the kind her mother graced her with all those years ago as she leads him away from the coffeepot and to the bed she should have been sharing for weeks. He will stay on his side and she will stay on hers.

He sleeps like a dead man usually, she’s taken the night watch enough times to know that, but tonight he shivers and tonight she inches closer. Tonight she comforts him, and even in dreams he relaxes into her hold. It’s dangerous how easily she could get used to sleeping against his back with her face nestled in the crook of his neck and her legs entwined in his. It’s dangerous how much she enjoys each breath of musk and sweat and his particular shampoo that she takes in, and it’s dangerous how simple it is to mold herself around him. She wakes up still pressed against him, and his hands cover hers on his waist, and she lets herself linger halfway down that cliff just for one morning.

> The first thing Laura’s aware of as she regains consciousness is fingers tracing the outline of her hairline and tucking a loose strand behind her ear. It’s a nice feeling, and if the pain meds she must be (should be?) on hadn’t been wearing off so quickly she probably would have opened her eyes with a contented smile on her face. As it is her eyelids are heavy as she blinks them open and the world seems far too bright even as all sounds seem somehow muted. There’s commotion by her side, but she’s far too dazed to be able to watch it as what must be her heart monitor beeps steadily to her right. She’s aware of a hand clutching at hers and  _ is that an apology? _ Whoever it is sounds far away and she really doesn’t have the energy to keep her eyes open much longer, let alone be coherent. Still, as she drifts back into that place between dreaming and nothingness she can’t help feel a certain sense of déjà vu. Wasn’t she just slipping away with with this same someone calling her name?

Her hands are shaking. Her hands are shaking and she can’t make them stop. She feels both numb and over stimulated, like her brain is going a million miles a minute but her body can never hope to catch up.

“Laura? Laura, look at me.” Her head turns slowly to see a shirtless Clint beside her with a wet towel and a worried expression. He sits down next to her cautiously, as if at any minute she’s going to do something drastic, but to Laura that idea’s ridiculous. At this point just speaking seems out of her reach. “We’re gonna get you cleaned up, okay?”

His movements are unmistakably soft as he dabs at the curve of her neck lightly, careful not to let her see how the blood there stains the towel pink. She shudders, but it isn’t the towel or him that makes her do so. “I killed him,” she whispers, lower lip quivering as it always does before she cries. She hates herself in this moment. It’s practically her job to kill people. She worked so hard to get this far, but now the blood on her hands is making her act sickeningly weak.

“The first time’s always the hardest,” he responds, his voice low and tinged with despondency, and he moves the towel up to her cheek. She shakes her head slightly, tongue peeking out to lick her lips. Her voice is choked when she finds it again.

“Not my first.” She’s an excellent sniper, always has had great aim. It might have even been one of the best at SHIELD until her fucking partner showed up. Clint simply nods and for once she’s sure that he actually hears her.

“First up close, though.” His attention is back on the blood splattered across her face as he speaks. It’s a good distraction for the both of them. “First time you’ve actually gotten blood on your hands, first time you’ve been able to see the light leave their eyes. It fucks you up. Messes with your head.” He glances at her trembling hands and then looks her square in the eyes. “Doesn’t mean you’re weak. Means you’re still human. That’s important.”

“Why are you being so nice?” The waterworks are starting now, and she bites her lip to keep from sobbing or something equally embarrassing. Serious is a different look on his face, and she’s seen it so few times that she’s still captivated by it.

“’Cause you need it,” he answers, experienced fingers brushing a tear away so gently it almost hurts. His lips are chapped but soft when she leans into him, and the kiss is slow and lingering and sweet. His hand cradles her neck and hers cups his cheek and it’s so different from the first time. “You sure about this?” he asks when he pulls away to rest his forehead against hers, and she keeps her eyes closed as she catches her breath.

“Yeah.” The next kiss is deeper, but still slow as she moves to straddle his lap on the hotel bed. Laura rolls her hips on his steadily and she feels him growing against her. His fingers deftly lift her camisole over her head, and she goes to work on the buckle of his belt. The kiss grows more urgent as he leans back into the mattress and sheds his pants with her help.

Clint rolls them over so that she’s beneath him, and for the first time the desire that lights her eyes as she gazes back up at him isn’t only composed of lust. He peppers kisses from her throat to her core and she’s so focused on the gasps and high-pitched moans he coaxes out of her that she forgets about the acts of the day. She arches into his touch, his everything, and her hips press up to meet his every thrust even as they become fiercer and faster. Laura loses herself in waves of pleasure, her lips whimpering his name as the release crashes over, and she clenches around him as he takes the final thrusts before his own finish, voice so low it’s barely there and the slight tremble in it almost as satisfying as what he’s done to her. 

Laura curls into him after and if she cries more than an assassin is supposed to before finally falling asleep Clint doesn’t comment on it. When she wakes with his arms still wrapped around her and her face nuzzled into his chest, Laura is amazed by how safe she feels in his embrace. She spends the last few hazy moments before she fades back into sleep wondering if maybe  _ this _ is what love feels like.

 

* * *

 

The next time she wakes up, she stays awake, and instead of one visitor there are several. Her father’s closest, his voice stern as he lectures her about reckless behavior and making safer choices in the field, and he won’t even let her disrupt him long enough to ask for something for her pounding head. Her mother is next, her voice shrill as she nudges her husband out of the way and convinces him that,  _ yes dear _ , their daughter’s wincing is more out of pain than remorse for her “poor decisions”. She tells him that his tirade will have to wait until she’s healthy, or at least out of her hospital bed, and after placing a quick peck on her youngest’s cheek she’s heading out into the hall for a nurse.

Laura can just spot her older brother Lucas napping in the corner while her elder sister, Lila, babbles on about how Levi’s booked the next flight to D.C. from Seattle and that he’ll be here soon and  _ oh my god did you hear that he has a new girlfriend I wonder if he’ll bring her with him that’d be so much fun _ . The commotion is a nice distraction from the IV stuck in her hand and the stiff bandages on her shoulder and chest, and it isn’t the first time that she’s been so grateful to have a family that loves her so much.

She catches a familiar face that looks suspiciously out of breath just peeking into her room, but her dad’s ranting at him before she can even get a word out. “What kind of partner just removes their comm halfway through a mission? I’m telling you,  _ son _ , if you had pulled that kind of crap in my day we’d have you wrung out to dry in no time flat, you hear me? The nerve of these kids today, jumping off of fire escapes and completely disregarding protocol left and right. If you think I’m not going to be speaking to your handler about this you’ve got another thing coming. I’ll have you transferred before you can say—“ 

All throughout Keith Mitchell’s blustering she’s been watching Clint’s face morph from worried to guilty to genuinely remorseful and if that last expression wasn’t so damn heartbreaking she’d be choking on her laughter. Instead she cuts the man who taught her how to ride a bike off with a curt “Dad!” and he looks down at her in surprise.

“He gets it,” she explains with a tired voice and shifts her focus to Clint. “You get it, right? You’re never turning your comm off during a mission again?” She can just watch him swallow and he looks unnaturally sincere as he nods.

“Never,” he agrees seriously and she makes the mistake of trying to shrug at her father. She swears that out of the corner of her eye Clint winces more visibly than she does at the unintentional pain she inflicts on herself.

“There you go,” she does say once she’s done gritting her teeth and she pastes an easy smile on her face. “Now, if you all could give us some privacy I have the world’s biggest apology to milk out of my partner.”


	3. trois.

> “Coulson tells me you want to transfer departments, Mitchell,” Director Fury states and Laura can feel a new wave of exhaustion washing over her as she stands at attention before his desk.
> 
> “No, sir. What I  _ want _ is a new partner, but every single one of my requests has been denied. At this point a transfer is the only option I have left to pursue.” In all honesty she hasn’t requested a new partner in months, but after their mission in Turkey she needs one as soon as possible. She’s desperate, and it’s evident in her voice even as her posture is ramrod straight. “I can’t rein him in anymore, sir. I think that’s very obvious considering our last job.”
> 
> “Have you ever considered that we didn’t pair you with Barton to rein him in, but so  _ he _ can let you out?” Of course she hasn’t considered that. Why would she?  _ He’s _ the one always ignoring the mission directives.  _ He’s _ the one outright refusing to go along with the plan just because he has a good feeling. She’s never gotten  _ him _ shot on the job.  

“To sum this briefing up, the Black Widow is not someone to be trifled with. Are there any other questions?” Coulson finishes with his hands clasped in front of him. Laura gnaws on her lip and shakes her head warily. This mission is big. Really big. It’s the biggest mission she and Clint have ever gone on, and it might even be the biggest one they ever will. The Black Widow is quite possibly the most infamous figure in espionage, the kind of woman whose legacy is whispered stories of her jobs that sound more like tall tales than actual happenings, and Laura knows that she and Clint can’t be the first agents sent to take her out. She can only hope for their sake that they’re the last. When she peeks up at her partner to gage his reaction even he looks slightly overwhelmed and she finds that oddly reassuring. Maybe Natalia Romanoff will be enough to keep Clint from going rogue.

> “Is this because of Madrid, Agent?” Fury asks, and she appreciates that despite the certain lightness in his tone he isn’t mocking her. Still her lips go tight and her nod is curt as she swallows thickly.
> 
> “Yes, sir,” is her slightly embarrassed, slightly lost reply.
> 
> “You  _ are _ the perfect soldier, Laura. Detail-oriented. Dependable. Always willing to put the team and your objective before your own needs. A stickler for the rules even when they involve divulging personal information.” Laura takes the praise even though she knows it will soon be followed by something that isn’t praise at all. “What I don’t think you realize is that you can’t be a perfect soldier and a perfect spy and a perfect person.”

“You slept with Katrina?” Clint hisses as soon as Laura slips into the seat across from him with her coffee in her hands.

“You also slept with her, Taylor,” she reminds him with an irritated huff and narrowed eyes. “Why else do you think I didn’t come back to the room last night? Did you think we were braiding each other’s hair?”

“Yeah, okay, but you don’t ever sleep with anyone!” What she had misdiagnosed as anger in his tone is now more obvious as incredulity and she sips from her drink slowly as she savors it. “I don’t know, I thought you were, I don’t know…”

“Is this jealousy I hear?” Her lips curl up into a smile that would rival the Cheshire cat’s, and  _ oh _ she’s enjoying this.

“No, it’s worry, Mary,” he admits, eyes no longer meeting hers as he raises his coffee to his own lips. “I was worried about you.”

She frowns, suddenly ashamed. Maybe she does too good of a job convincing herself that there’s nothing between them? Still, isn’t that what she wants? What should be best for them? “I’m a big girl, Taylor,” she does say, and if her mind wasn’t still buzzing with thoughts of their target she might have even reached out to place her hand on his. He simply nods, still not looking at her as he shifts his gaze out the window they’re sitting by.

“I like her,” he finally comments, voice so offhand she can tell he expects her to tell him he’s crazy. The truth, though, is that she agrees. She likes her, too. In fact, the image of fiery curls and full red lips feels like it’s been seared into her consciousness, and don’t get her started on the memory of pale fingers tracing over her skin with as much care as if she, too, was a work of art. She likes her too much to be healthy or safe so of course she does what he expects.

“You like everyone.”

> “What about Barton?” Fury asks casually once they’ve figured out the details of her reassignment. Laura shifts her gaze down for an instant to set her features into steel and keep her voice aloof.
> 
> “Someone needs to train Romanoff, and Barton’s good with her,” is her rehearsed reply. She’s thought it over in her mind at least a thousand times. It’s heroic, what she’s doing. She’s stepping aside so that they can reach their full potential. She’d just be holding them back. Hell, she’s already holding herself back. This is something that will be the best for all of them.
> 
> “It’s that easy?” Director Fury’s voice is skeptical at best, at worst it’s barely holding back a laugh. Laura shrugs, lips tighter than before. “You going to tell him?”
> 
> “He’s smart. He’ll figure it out.”

“Don’t touch him!” Laura yelps, legs already pounding across the carpet of the much too nice hotel their shoot out has led to. The redhead’s hands immediately freeze inches away from Clint’s chest and Laura catches a look of disappointment shoot across her face right before the immaculately cool and collected mask of the Black Widow flashes back into place.  She herself is slamming to her knees by his side in an instant, hands pressed against his side and pulling away to see blood, sticky and warm, covering them. There’s fear rolling in her stomach, and she has to regulate her own breathing to keep from fully panicking.

“Okay, this looks bad,” his voice is tight as she forces herself to scan his body for other injuries and she can already see that one of his ankles is definitely broken. “I think I need CPR, Laura. Or Nat. Nat works, too.”

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” Her cheeks are hot with tears and her fear is easily turning into anger. There’s a soft hand on her shoulder and she finds it easier to look away from her partner than to keep trying to convince herself he’ll be fine.

“Mary, I swear on my life, we will get him out of this,” Natalia promises, and she sees what should be sincerity in her eyes. She can’t trust her, though, refuses to. Clint would be safe if it wasn’t for this stray, this stray that she let get too close. Her touch has her wanting to lean into it even as little as she wants to do with her, and Laura is so weak.

“ _ I’m _ getting him out of here, and I honestly don’t give a fuck if you come with us, Widow.” Her hands scrabble for purchase on Clint’s shirt and she rolls him from his back to his stomach by his shoulder and knee before he can protest.

“Laura, no.” She ignores him and the desperation in his voice as she moves from his side to his head and hooks her elbows under his armpits, lucky that he’s too weak by now to really fight her. “Get out of here. Go. I’ll be dead weight.”

“Call me by my codename or I’ll rip out your damn throat after we get out of this, Hawkeye.” In a somewhat fluid motion she’s pulling him up to a standing position and placing her right leg between his just as her left hand pulls his right over her shoulder.

“Wildcat, I’m– I’ve been enhanced. I can, should, carry him,” the master assassin’s voice is strong, sure, the kind that you can’t say “no” to, and Laura doesn’t. She simply squats, distributing his weight over her shoulder, and places an arm between his legs to reach behind his right knee before she stands. He’s heavy, but one thing is certain in her mind. She can’t leave him, never will be able to, and she folds that notion into the back of her mind to be dealt with later.

“Okay, let’s get a few things straight,” Laura starts, firm tone directed at the both of them, “ _ He _ chose to throw our mission in the gutter.  _ He _ made the call to bring you back so now I’m stuck with you. I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you, but if you’re coming with us, you’re covering my back. If you’re not with us,  _ good luck _ .” Scarlet brows raise incredulously for a moment, and the other woman looks caught between feeling respect for her or contempt. Laura doesn’t wait for the spy to decide which before she’s stalking out the back hallway, and the light footfalls behind her serve just as well as an answer.

“I think I love you,” Clint mutters in her ear once they’re out of the hotel and about 30 feet into the cool night air of Istanbul. It isn’t something she wants to hear; it’s something she already knows. She doesn’t want to know it, though, wants to ignore it and shove it away like she did her earlier realization. The problem is that somewhere among the “fuck you”s and glares and petty insults there was comfort and teasing and something that could only be love. God, did it kill her.

Who was she, Pussy Galore? She was an agent. She needed to be strong and sure. He made her weak. He made her question those rules she clung to like a life raft. Her breath hitches, her stride falters, her eyes have the indecency to sting with tears, and her throat constricts. “I hate you,” she whispers just loud enough for him to hear. It’s too soft to convey all the truth it bears, and as she walks foot after foot down these awful roads to a safehouse that might not be safe all she can think is how much she hates herself for letting it get this far.

> Her new partner is a nice guy. 40. Two kids. Prickly wife. The perfect kind of person for her not to fall in love with. Their missions are simpler, less intense. She doubts SHIELD wants to pay this guy’s life insurance policy considering all his dependents. 
> 
> It only takes a few months for her to realize there are different kinds of hatred. There’s the kind of hate where they get under your skin and make you want to get under their clothes, and there’s also the kind where literally everything they do repulses you. Clint? He’s the first. Mark, the type of agent who finds a little too much enjoyment in seducing and screwing their targets before explaining to you how it isn’t really cheating since it’s all for the job? Yeah, he’s the second.

Laura carries him farther than she should, until her muscles are screaming and her pulse is thrumming in her ears, and although Nat has been offering about every 50 feet to trade off the weight she still doesn’t let her. At some point Clint loses all consciousness, and Laura cries just a little even with Natalia watching her. When she stumbles and falls to her knees she stays there, hunched over and shaking and just barely able to keep her eyes open. The weight leaves her shoulders and she slumps to the ground fully, too tired and dizzy to put up any fight when she feels an arm pulling her up by her waist. “I’ve got you,” the Black Widow whispers and it’s the first time she’s heard the full extent of the woman’s Russian accent. Laura thinks it’s beautiful.

She sits by his side for hours while he’s unconscious. The medical staff assures her that he’s fine, tells her that she needs to be examined, too, but the looks she shoots them are murderous as well as dead tired. She doesn’t touch him and instead keeps her hands folded in her lap with white knuckles. Nat’s been quarantined, but Laura’s irritability makes her terrifying enough to get most of her requests answered in double time so as soon as Clint stirs she’s calling for Nat to take her place. One pulled muscle in her back, strained muscles in her legs, and two IVs to combat her dehydration and Laura is told to rest up. She doesn’t. She paces outside Clint’s room once they’re back in the States until he wakes again and then she slips away only to return once he’s back unconscious.

The third night she feels eyes on her back and a glare settles on her features as she looks up for whatever nurse thinks that she should lie down rather than keep watch. Instead she finds Natalia with her head cocked slightly to the side, countenance as bewildered as she probably lets it show. With a sigh Laura stops her pacing and leans her palms against the window before resting her forehead against it. The defector joins her after a minute and they stand in silence until Laura reaches her hand out for the other woman’s. 

When their eyes meet all it takes is one step for Laura to press her lips against Natalia’s hesitantly. There is no hesitation, no second-guessing, though, in the redhead’s movements when she kisses her back thoroughly and Laura moans into her mouth as nimble fingers trace down her sides and just under the hem of her shirt. Just as she’s about to tangle her own fingers into auburn tresses, the spell is broken and she jerks away from Nat as if she’s just been burned.

Her hand immediately goes to cover her mouth as she stares wide-eyed at her. “Why did I do that?” she murmurs, voice full of panic.

“Laura, it’s alright,” Natalia reassures her slowly, voice serious and almost hurt. “I  _ wanted _ you to kiss me.” 

Laura just looks at her for a moment, doubt and fear and want all written on her face before she forces herself to blink them all away painfully tight. “I can’t,” she says forcefully, more to herself than anyone else before pursing her lips and turning on her heel to walk away. It’s only once she rounds the corner that she presses her back against the wall and hugs herself tight.  _ It’s too much. This is all too much. _

 


	4. quatre.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> slight mentions of noncon tw

> “Mitchell’s losing it,” someone whispers in the breakroom and Laura doesn’t even break her glazed stare at the opposite wall. They’re right, whoever they are. She  _ is _ losing it. Or maybe she already lost it. Maybe she just gave it away.

One day as her sight has gone hazy with the echoes of final screams reverberating through her psyche she dimly hears Clint’s name and suddenly she’s ripped back to the present. Strike Team Delta’s been hit, bad. They’re still in the ICU and it doesn’t look good and Laura’s skidding out of her seat and down the hall with a coherency she hasn’t felt in days.

The assassins share a hospital room, and Laura worries at her lip as she watches silently for their condition to improve. There aren’t many else at their bedside so when her new handler comes down to tell her she’s needed for a mission she assures him that he can kindly fuck off because there’s no way she’s leaving before at least one of them is conscious. Director Fury looks undeniably smug when he comes to check on his best agents and finds Laura half-dozing in a chair between them, and she offers him a tired salute from her spot.

When they’re alone she holds their hands, and when Nat’s hair starts to mat from the bedrest she braids it. It’s amazing how familiar the action is, how even after all the killing her fingers have done they can still craft something so innocent, and it gives her something close to hope.

She’s especially timid around Clint, but she’s never been good at staying away from him before so even seeing his prone body lying in a hospital bed won’t change that. He doesn’t hate her in sleep, doesn’t make that self-loathing bubble up her throat without his eyes open. Laura brushes his hair out of his face tenderly and is caught by the memory of calloused fingers tucking a lock of hair behind her own ear. It’s the first time she’s cried since Istanbul and the action is freeing instead of shameful. You’re supposed to cry when those you care about are hurt. Maybe she is still human after all.

Clint’s the first to open his eyes, and she had forgotten what they looked like when they weren’t brimming with too many emotions for her to fully recognize. This time they’re just blue, but still her fingers pause at his hairline immediately when their gazes lock. He looks at her like she’s an angel and she’s much too selfish to correct him. She’s more monster than heavenly being now, but she’s working on it. Instead she lowers her face to his slowly and kisses him softly, carefully,  _ reverently _ . Their breath mingles after and when she opens her eyes his are just fluttering shut once more, but at least this time he’s almost smiling as he goes back under.

Her handler is back minutes after, and Laura nearly blushes because he must have been watching to know Clint had woken up. “He was conscious. Time’s up,” he says simply, a mission briefing in hand and a stern look on his face. Laura nods and follows him out, fingers just barely trailing down Clint’s side wistfully until he’s out of reach.

> She’s wanted this for so long, watched her father do it and gobbled up any work stories he had for her. Being an agent, the best agent, is all she’s ever wanted, but now that she’s living the dream it’s tearing her apart from the inside out.

“They aren’t coming for us, Mark,” Laura hisses, and she really should be kinder in this situation. As it is, she’s bruised and dazed after being pumped with something to keep her half-awake, and all she wants is for someone to make everything stop hurting. The constant complaining and mock bravado of her partner isn’t helping the dull ache in her arms from where they’re chained to the ceiling or their situation in general so she’d like them to stop. There’s no way that SHIELD’s sending their best operatives in just to rescue them, and she’s accepted it. The risk’s too high. Yeah, it’s terrifying, but it’s also reality. They signed up for this when they entered the academy; it’s time to face the truth. They’re dying here, wherever here is.

“I have a family, Laura,” he starts, his voice breaking for the first time. It’s also the first time he’s ever mentioned them, and Laura realizes that maybe he isn’t a complete scumbag. “What’s my girlfriend gonna do without me?” No, actually, he is. Sadly, her retort is lost in her throat when a loud creaking to her left signifies the arrival of the man who’s brought them here.

“You took something from one of our rivals, Miss Mitchell,” he starts, and Laura’s so sick of being called ‘Miss’ while her partner is always “Agent”. Of course, being literally in chains doesn’t really give her much leverage to argue at the moment. “We want it.”

“SHIELD doesn’t negotiate,” she enunciates slowly and clearly. “I don’t care how much you want it, you’re not getting it in exchange for our lives.” The man only chuckles, and Laura bristles at it.

> All her missions lately have gone off without a hitch. The epitome of perfection, but the mission reports don’t record how thoroughly her hands shook as she found her in her scope. They don’t show how their body seem to have vivid red hair once they’re down, how she wakes up gasping for air swearing that there’s still blood staining her hands. She isn’t _ just  _ losing  _ it _ . She’s losing herself.

“We’ve been watching you for a while. Ever since Istanbul, actually,” he states, beginning to circle her. Laura wonders if he’s trying to be cliché or if he truly thinks it makes him intimidating. “You see, we’ve been watching the Black Widow even longer, and Istanbul, well, that was certainly an anomaly. As you probably know, Black Widow spiders are best known for their post-coital practices, but, you and your former partner, you bucked the trend.” He pauses now, she guesses simply so that he can shake his head and prepare to reveal his evil plan. He doesn’t disappoint. “Now, what didn’t make sense was you. Why you were on the mission to begin with, why she kept you alive, both questions we couldn’t answer. You’re attractive, surely, but so was Hawkeye. All your missions since have been far less sensitive, much more appropriate to your skill-level, correct?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, expects her to be too embarrassed to disagree. _ Fuck him. _ “But then we saw it. ‘ **I think I love you.** ’ Five simple words that explained everything.”

This time he does have a point, and it’s startling. He may have completely underestimated her abilities, but he hasn’t underestimated Clint’s ability to care. Laura swallows down the bile rising up her throat. She always knew this would happen. She just selfishly thought  _ he _ ’d be the one getting  _ her _ killed. “You’re wrong,” she says, but even she knows that no matter how confident her voice sounds he knows too much.

“We both know I’m not, my dear. A woman’s weakest point will always be her heart, and Hawkeye has hers while you have his. He’ll come for you. We’ll have both anomalies. The Widow will finally be ours.”

> She misses Clint, misses him so much it hurts. He made her better, kept her human, allowed her to be soft. Without him she feels like a husk of a person, like a puppet rather than a human. He hates her and she deserves it. She let this beautiful broken boy half in and slammed the door in his face when she decided he was too close. Worst of all she told herself it was a favor to him.

“Now, of course, some adjustments had to be made.” He explains, eyes roving from the obvious bruises on her exposed forearms down to those on her neck and he frowns. When he steps towards her she doesn’t flinch although her body begs her to. “I hope you understand this is really nothing personal.” In an instant his hands are gripping the front of her shirt and ripping it open, buttons flying as they’re torn from their thread. Laura gasps and her hands itch to pull her shirt closed where it now gapes open.

“Don’t touch her!” Mark suddenly shouts from where he hangs, almost forgotten to her right. He receives a slam to the face by the butt of the man’s gun that had only seconds ago been at his side, and her partner’s head lolls to the side as he’s knocked unconscious.

“Better,” their captor comments, almost clinically, and for the first time she’s honestly scared.

“What are you going to do to me?” she asks, voice barely wavering. She has to be strong. The man doesn’t even look up at her and simply shifts his hands to the hem of her skirt.

“Insurance. I want Barton to come as quick as he can. What’s better incentive than the thought that his lover’s been preyed upon by her captors?” is his reply as he carefully bunches the fabric up until it barely covers her thighs. He is careful not to let his skin touch hers, and that sickens her more than anything else. He does this to her as if his “respect” is a kindness, as if he’s still a gentleman. He treats violating her like an act that can’t be helped rather than the revolting thing it is.

“You’re repulsive,” she spits at him, voice furious. It’s met with a harsh slap to her face that has her eyes watering and her gaze hazy.

“Don’t make me something I’m not, Miss Mitchell.” He’s obviously shaken as he slicks back his hair with his hand as if it committed the violence on its own and turns to the lone table in to room to set up his camera. “You’re the one who lays with monsters. I’m nothing compared to them.”

> She’s never known self-loathing, but when she catches him looking at her in the hallways she is all too familiar with it. His eyes are hot with too many emotions, anger, hurt, need, too many for her to even understand let alone ignore, but still she pretends she can. Laura can’t remember the last time that she was proud of herself. She can’t even remember the last time she was kind.

Along with being a piece of actual shit, her captor also happens to be a perfectionist. As he creates his cinematic masterpiece which will serve as a ransom note he complains each time over her lack of emotion. “Don’t make me do something drastic,” he threatens and she just wishes he would. Instead she gives him a smile that’s all guile and slips her gaze back to the cue cards he’s prepared for her. The script is asinine at best, and he’s lucky he’s put so much effort into beating her into looking the part. Without the bruises covering her body and the fat lip his last slap gave her, the lines would be obviously out of character.

“Why do you keep making me do things I don’t want to do?” he mutters after another particularly poor take.

“I guess I’m just not a good actress,” she muses, voice light until he takes a gun from one of his lackeys and points it directly in her face.  _ Finally. _ She’s almost relieved that he’ll kill her. At least now she won’t be dragging Clint or Natasha down with her. Instead, though, he shifts the revolver so it’s aimed at Mark’s chest and fires. Her scream is mingled with his as her partner crumples as much as he can in his bonds. The shot is enough to drastically wound, but not enough to kill.

“You make this one believable and we save him. You don’t and he bleeds out right there.” Laura’s stuck, and the man knows it. She presses her eyes shut hard to fight back the tears pricking her tears, but one still escapes as she nods.

This take is perfect, the tears running down her cheeks absolutely make it. Her captor doesn’t notice or simply chalks up the subtle movements of her fingers as fidgeting, and Laura is at least glad at that. “ **Set up** ,” her fingers spell in the rudimentary ASL she’s been studying for months. “ **Don’t come** .” She hopes Clint takes her advice, or maybe that Natasha will be able to talk him out of it with her warning as back up.

“Save him,” she begs, and doesn’t quite realize the camera’s still running as her eyes focus back to Mark’s agony. Instead another gun’s shot rings clear into his temple and splatters her with blood. Her throat goes raw from her sobs as her captor leaves, and it’s been so long since she’s felt this kind of hatred searing her veins as it courses through her.


	5. cinq.

Her stomach is writhing because of course, of course, they’re coming now, and the more she thinks about it the more sick it makes her. Natasha might have, really might have let this go, but there’s no way Clint is letting them keep this from him. There’s no way he’s letting one of his old partners die when he could try to prevent it, and there’s no way Nat’s letting him go alone. Maybe she does have a type now that she thinks about it. Assassins with the world’s best self-preservation instincts until their intense loyalty gets in the way. She’s so sick of holding herself apart, holding herself to the rules, holding herself away from things she wants. Yet even after all her efforts to keep herself an agent and not a lover, she’s still typecast as a crying damsel in distress whose only purpose is to be saved and fucked, no matter the order.

Well, if that’s what they want, that’s what they’ll get. Her plan is hazy at best, but Clint’s worked with ones with even less sense and still been successful so she’ll just have to emulate him again. She fidgets where she stands, back arching provocatively as she seemingly struggles against her bonds. The gasps and hisses at the supposed pain that the chains around her wrists elicit are more sexual than agonized, but that’s what she has to work with. Certainly not all of the men this organization employs can be so “virtuous”. From the shift in the guard by the door’s stance, it seems like she was right. Good thing she only needed one person watching her. “Please,” she begs, voice husky and laced with need. “My wrists, they’re numb.”

“I can’t let you out,” the man replies, voice just oozing machismo and authority. Laura wants to gag but instead widens her eyes and pouts her lips purposefully into a miserable expression.

“Please, just a few inches,” a masterful glance at his package, and then a lick of her lips before she shifts her eyes back up to his face, “Could you just lower me a few inches?” He swallows almost imperceptibly, and casually glances over his shoulder. That’s right. No one’s going to catch you. Come on. He strides forward finally and stops mere inches from her with an ugly smirk carved into his harsh features. His breath is hot and rank in her face when he leans forward to give a reply.

“What’ll you do for me if I do?” And it’s the exact kind of question she wanted. She’s got him now.

“Anything.” This time her gaze drops and stays at the recognizable bulge in his pants and she wets her lips purposefully. Who would have guessed that just leaving your tits out would be a great way to seduce someone? He stiffens slightly and immediately goes to where she recognizes the pulley system is located. It only takes him a minute to release it, and she plays weak enough to let him lower her to her knees on the floor, although her arms are still kept above her head. What an idiot.

Her hands get good purchase on the chains above her and as soon as he’s in front of her again she’s on her feet and with the new slack in her bonds uses the thick metal around her wrists as an effective added weight to her swing across his face. She kicks him in his especially sensitive groin next, and as he’s immediately bent over and caught between clutching his face or his balls she rams her knee into his nose hard enough to knock him out.

“How’s that for ‘anything’, bitch?” Laura mutters as she works at the chain around her wrists. A few subtle twists and she’s free to finally lower them.

She searches his body for anything else that could be useful aside from the gun from its holster at his side and finds a lighter and utility knife. She’s caught between killing the man and letting him live, but she can’t force herself to raise her gun against someone who isn’t even awake to attempt to react. Instead she turns away from him to study the metal table still left in the room. Tipping it on its side she’s pleased to see that the legs are screwed on rather than welded, and it’s only a few minutes of using the knife as a screwdriver to have one of them free in her hands. Knife tucked in her skirt, metal table leg in her left hand and handgun in her other, Laura deems herself as ready as she ever will be.

 

* * *

 

“I underestimated you, Ms. Mitchell,” her former captor says from his place prone on the floor and Laura takes her time in weighing the table leg in her grip. Her voice is sickeningly polite when she answers and her lips quirk up in what could only be called a  _ semblance _ of a smile.

“Don’t worry. It won’t happen again.” The arc of the metal in her hands is graceful until it connects with his jaw and the spray of blood that leaves his mouth catches in the light eerily. The motion is freeing, and she repeats it again and again on his back, his knees, his stomach until he does nothing but moan on the ground below her. With a labored breath and tense arms she finally turns away from him, the table leg still clutched in her white-knuckled grasp, sated by his punishment for now.

“I thought,” his weakened voice breaks out from where she thought she had left him unconscious, “I thought I was luring in monsters when I had one in my hands the entire time.” Laura pauses in the few steps she’s taken away from him and considers his words. Clint told her once that he was a monster. She hadn’t understood it then, had just brushed it off as him being overdramatic. “You’re a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

“We’re all wolves,” she counters darkly, already reaching for the handgun tucked in her skirt as she turns. “Some are just more domesticated than others.” She cocks her head to the side as her bullet finds its target in his cranium. They’re both right. She’ll have to come to terms with it soon, but for now she has bigger things on her mind, like getting out of there without running out of ammo.

 

* * *

 

There’s a muffled sound of flesh hitting flesh around the corner, and a thrill of something a little too close to hope runs up her spine as she presses herself to the wall and listens for the dull thud of a body hitting the floor. It comes soon enough and now all she can hear is heavy breaths and heavier footsteps that are  _ so _ familiar. Laura should round the corner and show herself. He’s here for her. He’s worried about her. He loves her.  _ Loved her _ . But who she is scares her right now, and she doesn’t want to scare him, too. There’s blood on her face and her hair and her chest and bruises worn into her skin.  She looks like a mess and deep down might even be more of one, and she never wants him to see her as anything but poised and in control.

The closer the footsteps come the more she holds her breath. She wants him to be proud of her. She wants him to love her again, but what if he doesn’t? 

_ She’ll have to live. If he doesn’t she’ll live. If she can make it out of this hellish situation alive then certainly she can survive without Clint Barton loving her, even if she doesn’t want to.  _

She raises her gun, surprisingly steady for being as mentally and physically exhausted as she is, and waits for whomever it is to round the corner and find her.

It’s Clint, just like she guessed, and she lowers the weapon immediately, even dropping the table leg with a loud clatter. The metal had bit into her skin as she gripped it like a lifeline this entire time, but only now does it sting. Only now does she feel the bruises and the aches and the throbbing of her head. She thinks it must have to do with Clint, something about safety and knowing he’ll have her back if she needs it, and she barely even recognizes herself slumping back into the wall behind her until her knees lock. Right now all she can see is something unreadable in Clint’s face, that same look he gave her when she asked him about siblings so long ago.

“I guess I’m the one who looks like shit now, huh?” she murmurs, forcing half her mouth up in a poor copy of a teasing smile. The mask breaks then, or maybe he just lets it down because she can just barely register fear and relief in his eyes before his arms have swallowed her up and his face is buried in her hair. It feels something like heaven, but she doesn’t have time to appreciate it because he’s pulled away in half a second.

“Fuck. I’m sorry. Nat said…” he trails off, now guilt fully coloring his expression. She doesn’t say anything, unsure what Nat might have said. Natasha has always been able to read her better than Clint, either because of her training or simply because Laura tried to hide more from her ex-partner. “Did they touch you? I’ll kill them if they touched you.”

For a moment all she can do is appreciate what a range of emotions Clint’s face has gone through so quickly, especially as now she doesn’t think she’s ever seen him so angry. It’s validating almost, endearing. “You’d kill them even if they hadn’t,” she comments with that same half smile. He’s rubbed off on her too much, but she doesn’t hate it anymore. Right now she just clings to it. “But they didn’t. They just wanted it to look that way, thought it’d make you care more. They wanted me to look both ravaged and sexy. Did it work?” The question isn’t a question, more like a self-depreciating joke that makes her feel dirty and forces the smile off her face.  “There isn’t anyone left to kill anyway, at least anyone who deserves it. I covered it.”

Hawkeye crosses his arms and there’s another emotion on his face, something like uncertainty as he bites back his anger for her. She’s surprised he hasn’t made a joke yet, but is sobered once again when she has to acknowledge this isn’t really a joking matter. “Sick fucks,” he mutters under his breath finally and she has to agree. “This is my fault. If I hadn’t been such an idiot they never would have done this.” He has a point, but it isn’t really something she wants to linger on. They could have saved so much trouble by not falling for each other, really.

Instead she bites the inside of her cheek and shrugs, suddenly ultra-aware of the way her shirt sticks to her neck with the blood of her former partner. She reaches up to shift her collar and pulls back a hand flecked with red. “Can I borrow your jacket?” she asks him, stupidly self-conscious for a moment when he just looks at her for a moment.

“Yeah, of course.” He’s out of it in seconds and looks about ready to help her into it, but by the time he looks back at her she’s shed the oxford. It should be cute, how he blushes, but it just reminds her how pathetic she must look. He offers the standard SHIELD wear to her awkwardly and she slips it on quickly, zipping it up all the way until it just glances against her ears. It smells like him, and she can’t help but close her eyes and breathe in slowly. It smells safe, if that’s possible, and Laura feels tears leaking past her lashes.

His fingers are, as always, calloused, as they brush away the wetness from her cheeks, and, as always, they are uncommonly gentle with her. It's a raw whisper that passes her chapped lips. An offering of "I'm sorry." that sounds so much like "I love you." He takes her hand then, cradles it in his larger one, both calloused, both bloody, both holding each other like a lifeline. His "Let's go home." sounds so much like "I love you, too." that even in this place that will haunt the darkest corners of her mind, she cannot help a small quirk of her lips as she follows him.

 

**Author's Note:**

> enjoy some super self-indulgent claura i wrote in 2015 ?? please kudos / comment if you like it or hate it !! love y'all !


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